The rising number of unidentified bodies in the capital Dhaka and elsewhere in the country has become a concern, with 461 such bodies recovered in the first nine months of 2025.
Rights body Manabadhikar Songshkriti Foundation鈥檚 data revealed that 461 unidentified bodies were recovered between January and September this year while the number was 373 and 250 in the same period in 2024 and 2023.
At least 52 unidentified bodies were recovered in September alone, the rights body said, stating that except two or three cases, most of these bodies remained unidentified.
Expressing concern, experts and human rights activists said that most of these cases seemed to have been murder cases due to economic, political and personal enmity-related disputes.
Mawlana Bhashani Science and Technology University鈥檚 criminology and police science department dean, professor Md Omar Faruk, told 抖阴精品 on October 28 that the number of unidentified and unclaimed bodies was significantly increasing and described the situation as deeply concerning.
Saying that most of these incidents seemed to have been of murder cases, he blamed the overall law and order situation in the country, and political unrest for the condition.
鈥楶erpetrators are taking advantage of this crucial time to execute killings due to disputes related to business, politics, personal and others. Perpetrators know that they will get away after committing a crime,鈥� he said.
These killings are targeted and being committed by professional criminals, Omar Faruk said.
鈥楢fter committing crimes, perpetrators are dumping these bodies in such places that the recovery of bodies happens much later and the bodies become decomposed by that time, making it hard to identify the victims,鈥� he added.
Experts and rights activists also noted that most of these unidentified bodies were found floating in rivers or ponds, along highways, under bridges, near railway tracks, in fields, or in isolated areas.
On October 5, the blood-soaked body of an unidentified woman was found lying on the muddy ground in an open area beside Gendaria Railway Station in Dhaka with multiple stab wounds on her neck and body.
Gendaria police station officer-in-charge Golam Mortuja said on October 29 that the body remained unidentified and was handed over to welfare organisation Anjuman Mufidul Islam for burial.
The police suspected that the woman was raped before being killed while no one has so far been arrested over the killing.
Manabadhikar Songshkriti Foundation chief executive Saidur Rahman told 抖阴精品 that killing was becoming a troubling and significant contributor to public insecurity.
鈥業t is the government鈥檚 responsibility to provide security to every citizen of the state. Therefore, it is important to identify and punish those involved in these incidents,鈥� he said.
The government should take effective measures in this regard and the duty cannot be completed by merely stating that an unidentified body has been recovered, Saidur said.
Regarding unclaimed bodies, he said, 鈥楾he bodies are being buried indiscriminately, without identifying whether they are Hindus or of other religions.鈥�
He called for transparency and accountability in these cases.
According to the data by the Anjuman Mufidul Islam, 468 unclaimed bodies 鈥� identified and unidentified 鈥� were buried between January and September this year in the Dhaka city.
The number was about 378 in the same period in 2023, according to the Anjuman data.
The charity buried 59 unclaimed bodies in September alone.
According to Supreme Court lawyer Jyotirmoy Barua, many killings occur in the run-up to the national election as perpetrators take the period as the best time to execute killings for various reasons.
He said that incidents of killing might increase before the 13th parliamentary elections slated for February 2026.
Jyotirmoy also said that in most of the recent cases, the murder was executed in a place and the body was dumped in another, making it harder for identification of the body.
The law and order situation has not got better even after a year of the political changeover in 2024, he said, stressing that the overall law and order situation needed to be improved.
On the night of October 2, the police recovered the bodies of three individuals from near the Central Shaheed Minar, the National Eidgah, and the Central Mosque in the Dhaka University area.
Two of the bodies remained unidentified.
The police believed that all three were homeless people who slept on the footpaths and died of illness.
On October 3, a young man named Omar Faruk Molla went missing from his house at Hazaribagh in the capital.
Two days later, his body was found floating in Dhanmondi Lake. The same day, the police recovered three other bodies from Ramna Park, Gendaria, and Hazaribagh.
Sahadat Hossaine, assistant inspector general of the police for media and public relations at the police headquarters, told 抖阴精品 on October 29 that many of these bodies were identified later.
鈥榃e try to identify bodies through technology. If the identification cannot be determined, an unnatural death case is filed,鈥� he said.
He, however, refrained from commenting whether most of these cases seemed murders based on preliminary findings.
The police said that unidentified bodies, which are later identified, were handed over to families after completing the legal process.
Unclaimed bodies remain in morgues until court directs further action.
The number of unclaimed bodies buried in 2024 was 570, according to Anjuman.
The highest number was 81 in July, when the country was facing unrest as anti-quota protests by students spread across the country, which later turned into a mass uprising that ousted the authoritarian regime of Sheikh Hasina on August 5 in 2024.
At least 836 people, including children, were killed and more than 15,000 were injured in the July-August movement, official data show.
